Free Republic

On the Paradoxical Beauty of Dying Msgr. Charles Pope • November 6, 2016 • As most of you know, the Washington, D.C. City Council recently took a step toward legalizing physician-assisted suicide for those with less than six months to live.Although I have written elsewhere about the dangerous implications of this legislation, in today’s post I want to stand up for the dying, at home and in nursing homes, the fully lucid and those with advanced Alzheimer’s, those who are moving toward death relatively painlessly and those who are suffering.As a priest, it has been my privilege to accompany...

“….and Death is Gain” – A Meditation on the Christian View of DeathBy: Msgr. Charles Pope In the month of November we remember the souls of the faithful departed and our obligation to pray for them . November and into the early part of Advent is also a part of the Church Calendar when we begin to ponder the last things: death, judgment, heaven and hell. In the Northern hemisphere the days grow shorter and in regions further north, the once green trees and fields shed their lively green, and after the brief golden gown of autumn, a kind...

Bernadette was declared a saint 75 years ago and she still has much to teach us about living with pain.

VATICAN CITY, NOV. 4, 2008 (Zenit.org).- When facing death, one is forced to face reality and recognize things for what they are, says Benedict XVI. The Pope said this Monday upon presiding in St. Peter's Basilica at the traditional November Mass for the souls of cardinals and bishops who died over the course of the year. Members of the College of Cardinals concelebrated with the Holy Father. During the homily the Pontiff recalled the names of the 10 cardinals who passed away during the last 12 months: Stephen Fumio Hamao, Alfons Maria Stickler, Aloísio Lorscheider, Peter Poreku Dery, Adolfo Antonio...

Harvard Medical School scientists claim to have discovered a mechanism that may be the universal cause of aging. The study, published in the journal Cell, shows how DNA damage eventually leads to a breakdown in the cell’s ability to understand which genes are switched on and which are switched off. The cell’s decreasing ability to detect patterns of gene expression plays a critical role in aging, the researchers report. “This is the first potentially fundamental, root cause of aging that we've found,” says Harvard Medical School professor of pathology David Sinclair. “There may very well be others, but our finding...

r. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, the psychiatrist whose pioneering work with terminally ill patients helped to revolutionize attitudes toward the care of the dying, died Tuesday at her home in Scottsdale, Ariz. She was 78. She died after losing consciousness last week, according to her son, Kenneth. She had recently suffered a series of infections. As she neared her own death after debilitating strokes in the late 1990's, Dr. Kübler-Ross appeared to accept it, as she had tried to help so many others to do.